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Sunday, January 31, 2010

With so many early submissions arriving for the Therizinosaurs (thanks to all those who've sent them in ALREADY!... this is the first time in ART Evolved history we've had pieces well over a month in advance!) it is time for those of us who haven't quite got there to remedy this situation.

Sometime in this week both Craig and Peter will be starting what they are hoping to be a most epic (and first ever) duo person Live Blog. They will be starting up at about 8-9am Pacific Coast time.

It is not too late to live blog, or more to the point have your live blogging effort added to the list above! If you are planning on live blogging just let us know where (your site or blog that the updates will be appearing on) and when (with the date and rough time zone). You can either tell us in the comment section of this post or send us an email to artevolved@gmail.com.

Friday, January 29, 2010

As you know, I'm new to paleoart. I work in illustration, animation and concept. A series of weekly creature challenges at cgHub provoked me into writing here. Check out the jelly bubbled broad back here.What's the difference between creature design and paleoart? At the worst of times, its a film creature that causes laughter instead of fear, because of its obvious inability to exist - or perhaps a life reconstruction that ignores the potential to fascinate an audience and instead opts for dried-out clinical presentation.What do these disciplines share? Everything from a disciplined observation of anatomy and ecosystem to a imaginative yet responsible creativity in presenting fascinating creatures within a restrictive framework of either scientific knowledge or story plot.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Here's a scan of the last Prehistoric Times. Craig and Peter also on this spread, as well as Gregory Paul. Phil Bronlow and Louis Lavoie round off the page. Congratulations, everyone. Anyone else elsewhere in the magazine?

Those interested in getting a copy can subscribe or order here. Interested in contributing to future editions? Keep an eye out on the upcoming submission topics.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Q: What kinds of copyright are there? A: Let's have a look at a few definitions, remembering I am not a lawyer, but a fellow freelancing artist-illustrator trying to learn about these things. Despite the fact that it can contain inaccuracies, I will be linking to Wikipedia a lot in this Going Pro: I suggest confirming information with the useful citations and links found at the bottom of the entries.

1) Intellectual propertyMost types of copyright fall under intellectual property laws. You'll often hear creative types discussing protecting their IP. What they generally mean, is it's not enough to protect the idea, you have to protect the execution of that idea. Intellectual property as a concept deals with the intangibles of the idea in the mind, and tangibles or artistic creation.

2) CopyrightCopyright refers to the legal right of a creator over their creations. You don't have to register to have copyright (though there may be good reasons to register, covered below). By creating a piece of art, you are now a copyright holder in most countries under the Berne Convention. Congratulations!

3) Moral copyright Moral copyrights refer to the right to have artwork credited to the creator, even if the economic rights to use the artwork is sold to a client. In some cases, moral rights can also extend to not altering the work.

In an important case in the city of Toronto, Canada, artist Michael Snow had been commissioned by the Toronto Eaton Centre to create an installation sculpture of a flock of Canadian geese, titled Flightstop (right). (Good info on Wikipedia, Jan 2010.) The Eaton Centre placed red bows on the geese for the Christmas holidays, and the artist successfully sued, contesting that they did not have the moral right to alter his artwork, despite that they had paid for it. This is an important example to artists, and I would suggest having a mention of moral rights in any contract.

The result of suing or contesting a disagreement may not always be for money, unless damage to the artists' reputation has occurred. You may be only seeking legal action to restore the artwork to its original state. As a thought experiment (I know of no such examples), what if you were commissioned to paint a barosaurus, and later discovered the client lied about their affiliations with their institution and were now using your work prominently to promote creationism? That may damage your chances to get future work within the scientific community and you would need to redress what has happened to your moral rights.

4) Trademark and registered trademarkTrademarks are a way of identifying an image or product as representing a badge or symbol of a company. You may be a freelancer who incorporates their job, and uses a small symbol to denote your art - that could be your trademark. It's basically a way of identifying your brand, and trademarks refer to a brand.

If your trademark has been infringed, you can sue, but it may be difficult to do so out of a legal jurisdiction to which it originated.

Trademarks are generally noted by the™symbol. There's a similar symbol, ℠ for services rather than goods.

Registered Trademarks are usually allowed if you can prove your brand is distinct from all others, and register it with an agency, such as the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Individual countries will have similar agencies.

Registered trademarks are noted with the ® symbol.

5) PatentPatents generally refer to created or invented goods, so are not likely to be relevant to illustrators here at Art Evolved. Unless you invent a spiffy new brush for doing delicate scale work and wish to market it, patents don't need to be covered too much. If you do create a patent, you may want to register it to your country's patent office. Interestingly, the Danish company Lego has taken legal action in a number of countries against upstart Canadian company MegaBloks. In most cases, Lego has failed, due to the shape of their bricks belonging to patent law and not trademark law, and the patents have expired in many countries. In Canada, I believe the decision was that you could not trademark or patent a geometric shape. Picture at right shows a MegaBlok on the top, and Lego brick on the bottom.

6) Fair-useSo say you are sitting in a lecture at a university about dromeosaurs. And lo and behold, a piece of your artwork appears on the screen, illustrating a species' long running legs. You haven't granted any use to the professor: what's going on? Fair-use is an exception to copyright, allowing educational institutions to skirt the necessity of paying or procuring the right to use artwork for the sake of a single example, in lectures or talks. It may also come into play in journalism, such as a magazine article covering your art show and including a photograph.Fair use can be a bit of a grey area, and in most districts, something like re-printing your artwork on a handout for a class is still considered a violation of your copyright.

7) Transferred copyrightand licencingIn some cases, a copyright can be transferred. When this occurs, the client may ask the artist for unlimited use of their tyrannosaur cartoon for mugs, t-shirts, stuffed toys and so on. Typically, artists charge up to a few hundred percent more than their usual fee before surrendering unlimited, transferred copyright to a client (I would suggest looking at the Graphic Artists Guild Handbook to get an idea of what you should charge - great book).In some cases, an artist may be hired to make all of their drawings while working for a company. Tim Burton created his Nightmare Before Christmas characters while under a contract to Disney: when he wanted to make the movie, he did it with Disney's Touchstone label, since they had rights to the works. Similarly, Barbie-rival Bratz is alleged to have been created while the Bratz creator worked for Mattel, so Barbie may effectively own the Bratz.

A common licencing arrangement artists may want to consider in any contract, is to grant unlimited rights for a specified time period. If you create that tyrannosaur for unlimited rights, you may want to specify it as only being for the next two years, after which the client's use expires or needs to be re-negotiated. This is useful in case the image you've made becomes a runaway hit, and gives you another shot at further monetary compensations, such as royalties.

In most cases, I would not advise my fellow Art Evolved illustrators to transfer their rights, or grant unlimited licences. It's generally better to work use by use in my experience.

- - - -I hope this has been a useful reference, and thanks for joining me for another Going Pro here on Art Evolved. Cue the theme music.

Monday, January 18, 2010

The above illustration is of a cast of the holotype (original specimen) of a species of pliosaur, a marine reptile closely related to plesiosaurs, which generally have longer necks. The cast is one of the two main focal points (in my opinion) in the Fossil Reptile Gallery (the other one, see below, is not even a reptile) at the Natural History Museum, London, where I tend to spend a lot of time. Today, I felt compelled to sit and draw two beautiful specimens, and am quite proud of my effort.

I rarely used to get the chance to draw specimens at the Museum, as most of my time formerly got taken up by work of some description or another. I’ve been a Masters student, a volunteer and a librarian at the Natural History Museum at different points in the last few years, but now, despite doing some voluntary work in the Palaeontological Department, I have a lot of time to kill. So what better way to murder time than to draw skeletons.

I chose the Rhomaleosaurus to draw today for a number of reasons: (1) its sheer beauty and size; (2) it is one of my favourite specimens in the Museum; and (3) there is a bench placed conveniently opposite the specimen. I started by drawing a sketch of the entire animal, to make sure the whole thing fits on the paper. I am notorious for leaving off ends of tails and bottoms of feet because I don’t tend to plan ahead. This time I made sure the entire specimen would fit on a piece of paper 6 inches across.

Once I had a good idea of how it would fit, I began to detail, starting from the left hand side and working towards the right. I much prefer to draw animals that are facing the left; if you look at most of my portfolio (much of it can be seen on my blog, The Disillusioned Taxonomist) you can see this – it must have something to do with being right-handed. There may have been a subconscious decision to pick this specimen because it is facing the left. I detailed the skull, making sure all the holes were in the right places, and shaded the lower portion (from a viewer’s perspective; it is really the left part of the skull) darker than the upper side. Once the entire skull was shaded, I moved down the body.

Next came the cervical vertebrae, which, varying in state of preservation, were a challenge. There is a definite “ridge” across the midline of the specimen which appeared palest, creating a shadow beneath them to the left side of the animal’s neck. The number of vertebrae may not exactly match the real specimen, as I may have had to miss out a few or add a couple to fit!

The paddles were a fun part to draw, and I started on the top left one, the animal’s fore right paddle. First came the humerus, the ulna and the radius, then the small rounded carpal bones, followed by five digits made up of varying numbers of phalanges. The way that the cast was produced meant that there is a dark matrix around the smaller bones in the paddle, but this can be seen to represent the cartilage which was probably present in life, as whales have.

The rest of the vertebrae up to before the tail were much like the cervical vertebrae to illustrate, same dorsal ridge and shadowing. The ribs were more challenging: I wanted the ribs to appear shaded, like the same colour as the rest of the fossil, but paler than the areas between the ribs. In doing this, the ribs were hard to see, so I took a rubber (eraser) to the ribs and did my best to highlight them.

The hind paddles are very similar to the fore ones, and although the phalanges on one of the feet can’t be seen too well on this scan, they are roughly the same as on the other one. A small portion of the pelvis can be seen above the lower right paddle, and that created shadows on some of the femur, which I tried to indicate with darker shading.

The tail of the animal is poorly preserved, and the individual vertebrae cannot be made out clearly. I gave the entire tail a “base coat” of pale shading, adding darker patches to indicate shadows where I could see them. Some vertebrae could be made out, but only on the darker underside.

I really enjoyed drawing Rhomaleosaurus and want to try some of the other marine reptiles: there are plenty of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs to choose from, and a couple of mosasaurs, marine crocodiles and a stegosaur.

After lunch, I decided to draw the other focal point of the Fossil Reptile gallery, a mammal. A giant ground sloth in fact, which is a cast of a fully grown animal standing on its hind legs and leaning against a wooden pole. There is no bench on which to sit, so I sat on the floor on top of my jacket.

I decided to go for a different tack to draw this animal; although detail was needed, an outline sketch would show more clearly the shapes of the bones rather than the entire thing shaded in dark greys and black. It is in a dimly lit corner of the gallery, right by the entrance to the Palaeo Department, and it is hard to get perspective of the individual bone shapes.

Having said that, I think I have given a good impression of the specimen, highlighting some bones that may not be immediately visible to those looking at it directly or at a photograph or detailed drawing. Take the hyoid bone, for example, which is at the front of the neck, a V-shaped bone which anchors the tongue and is present in most mammals and is often missed out when reconstructing skeletons in museums. All five digits of the animal’s left hand can be clearly seen, although it was difficult to make out the outlines of each phalanx or metacarpal, so I had to guess a bit. Digits II and III have huge claws, while the thumb is much reduced.

I created depth by using diagonal lines instead of smooth shading. Parts of the specimen in the foreground are not sketched in, and those furthest in the distance (the right shoulder blade, for instance) are shaded with closely-barred lines. This is not to indicate shadow, but distance, so you can tell which ribs are in the foreground, and hence which are on the animal’s left side.

Again, I started with a rough sketch to get the outline. I was a little concerned at first that the head was too large and the hind-quarters a little small, but they seem to be OK. I outlined each bone as I saw them, starting at the skull and mandible, moving down the neck to the shoulder blade, fore limbs, rib cage and sternum, backbone, pelvis, hind limbs, and tail.

I intended to describe my drawing technique in this post, but I don’t know if I’ve done that... if you have any particular questions to ask about this, or the specimens, or anything, say so in the comments! Thanks for reading!

We've just been informed of a special "holiday" (though I'm not sure I'd afford it this title) called Draw A Dinosaur Day.

The events organizers have this to say:

Draw A Dinosaur Day is a holiday celebrated on January 30th. The goal is as simple as it's title: Draw A Dinosaur! You don't have to be a brilliant illustrator, just take a couple of minutes with a blank piece of paper, a post-it note or your computer and enjoy yourself. When you've finished scan it, take a picture of it, and upload it here! Then spread the word to your friends. Post your dino to flickr, twitter, facebook, your blog, LJ, anywhere on the internet you can! Posting will open January 29th, and be open until February 2nd. This will be the 4th year of Draw A Dinosaur Day, let's make it as successful as possible!

Also if you do submit a drawing to this event, please consider putting a slight promotion/link to ART Evolved with your piece. After all we don't just draw Dinosaurs one day of the year, we draw the 24/7 all 365 days of the year!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

With things hopefully calming down in your life after the holidays, and the calender slowly progressing towards the ART Evolved one year anniversary gallery (on Therizinosaurs) we thought it might be time to mobilize some...

Live Blogging!

For those new to the concept, live blogging (here at ART Evolved anyways) is where the artist of a piece documents the various steps that go into the creation of the artwork. This record can be either posted literally live as you work, or simply recorded and presented in order later.

We will be setting up another live blog central hub for the March gallery shortly (for a sample hub go to our first live blogging event here). So if you are interested in live blogging let us know when (with the day you'll be starting, so people know when to tune in) and where (your blog or website address) in either this posts comment section or send us it in an email artevolved@gmail.com.Even if you cven if you can't get to live blogging, please consider creating a Therizinosaur piece this March, and sending it in to artevolved@gmail.com

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Happy New Year's, palaeo-artists! It's once again time to open another of Life's Time Capsules here at ART Evolved! This time it's...

That's right! Our first Time Capsule of 2010 isn't a prehistoric critter! So, what is a Palaeo-environment? It's a reconstruction of a prehistoric ecosystem based on geologic and fossil evidence.

Start with a fossil site, determine what animal and plant organisms existed through fossils and trace fossils, then use the rocks to determine the depositional environment, the average temperature, oxygen and moisture levels. From this data, relationships can be inferred - predator/prey, food chains, behaviours, migration patterns...

All this research to bring you these final reconstructions: palaeo-environment restorations! From prehistoric Cyprus and Germany to ancient China to New Zealand, this Gallery traverses the World and explores rich fossil sites through art. It also dips into the abstract, where the fossil becomes the environment! (Click on the pics to enlarge them!)

ART Evolved invites you to enjoy this month's Time Capsule:Palaeo-Environment Galley!

Welcome to Cretaceous New Zealand, 69-70 million years ago. At this time New Zealand was part of a much larger land mass, a proper continent, half the size of Australia called Zealandia. By this time Zealandia was well in isolation from the rest of the world, having drifted away from Gondwana 83 million years ago. It would remain a giant landmass till well after the Cretaceous, but due to its lack of elevation and straddling a very active tectonic zone, Zealandia would eventually sink into the ocean leaving only the scattered remnants of many islands from its entirety. Of these Pacific islands today New Zealand is the largest.

For this gallery I present for you snap shots of life in the ocean throughout the history of Zealandia. Starting with some of the sealife that emerged near the beginnings of this short lived continent.

Off the shores of Zealandia we see a school of Belemnite swarm near the surface of the newly expanding Tasman sea. This activity attracts many medium level predators, the Cryptoclididae Kaiwhekea. The commotion caused by this level of the food chain attract even higher up predators that lurk on the edge of the school awaiting an opportunity. In this snap shot, one can just make out the silhouette of a rather large shark that has momentarily broken its cover.

For this piece I wanted something of an overall introduction to this ecosystem community, which included the food-chain ratios somewhat to proportion. I'd also like it noted that I'm not attempting to imply or convey social behaviour on the part of Plesiosaurs (in particular Kaiwhekea), but that rather like in nature large gatherings of prey would attract large numbers of their their predators.

One of New Zealand's most spectacular and complete vertebrate fossil finds has to be the single type specimen of the Cryptoclidid Kaiwhekea. This short necked Plesiosaur is among the most unique of the whole group. For despite being one of the last of this group of marine reptiles from around 70 millions ago, it is surprisingly primitive and has a great deal in common with Jurassic forms.

The formal name Kaiwhekea means "Squid Eater" in the indigenous language of the Maori, and it is a very appropriate name. The skull of Kaiwhekea is superbly adapted to hunt and catch mid sized soft bodied prey. The jaws are lined with hundreds of small needle like interlocking teeth, and powered by strong muscles to snap the mouth closed quickly. Its eyes were large set far forward in the skull, and were most likely binocular in vision.

This scene here is based on the conclusions of Kaiwhekea's description, and the remains of fossil Belemnites from the same locality as its skeleton Shag Point (Shag being the local word for Cormorant birds... not what most people think. Though I still laugh every time I drive by the villa's sign!)

Despite their fossil remains not being as complete as Kaiwhekea, New Zealand is known to have supported a vast and diverse array of Mosasaurs during the late Cretaceous some of which no doubt acted as the top of the food chain. Among the larger ranger of these marine reptiles was the Tylosaurid Taniwhasaurus. Known from the rear portion of the skull, this carnivore's jaws would be 3/4 of a metre long and had a body 10-12 metres long.

In my piece we see the Mosasaurid ambushing a young Kaiwhekea as it tried to catch squid. To me this is most likely the largest marine reptile prey a Mosasaur would be likely the catch. For one Mosasaur jaws have built in mechanics that do not allow prey to escape being swallowed, meaning they (like snakes and monitor lizards) had to swallow their prey whole. If like in TV shows and sensational media they attacked full grown adult prey animals they'd choke and die.

Herds of Shunosaurus lii and "Omeisaurus" tianfuensis feed near the landlocked lake that will one day become the quarry. Both were lightly built compared to later sauropods, and thus had small tail clubs and extremely large thumb claws for additional defense.

The setting is Late Jurassic, approximately a hundred sixty million years ago, in China. A pair of Anchiornis huxleyi attempt to protect their nest from a Tianyulong confuciusi. To the right, one sends out an alarm call and the other swoops down on the nest raider. Opportunistic ornithischians are by far not the only dangers the tiny troodonts have to face. From the left, a Darwinopterus modularis flies over the scene, a third Anchiornis huxleyi captured between its jaws.

We return once again to prehistoric New Zealand, still in the form of the continent Zealandia, but only just. By Oligocene 25 million years ago, the majority of Zealandia had sunk below sea level, and was not to resurface again. Not that this effected sea life adversely. In fact rather the opposite. Due to the remaining elevation provided by the sunken continental landmass (compared to the off self sea floor) Zealandia provided the basis for a large swallow sea during this time.

This supported a vast array of sealife. comprised of types we're familiar with today. Only much more primitive and ancestral forms. Among these were penguins, which had been thriving in the Southern oceans since the KT extinction event. These early Penguins were much more gracile then those we know today, as the Antarctic was temperate at this time.

The expansion of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica at this time was creating a vastly new and dynamic ecosystem to form with the strong currents that started to whip around the continent stirring up large quantities of nutrients. The drastic increase in avaliable food caused a major radition of Whales in the south.

Among these were the somewhat terrorifying Squalodons, or "Shark Toothed" dolphins. Some of these animals grow to nearly the length of the modern Orca, and would likely have preyed on most medium sized animals it encountered (though fossil evidence hasn't yet be presented).

Despite its large size and furious desposition, the Squalodon was not the appex predator of these swallow Zealandia seas. A far bulkier 9 metre ancestor of the Great White Shark prowled these waters, and most likely would have preyed on (young at least) Squalodons.

Last March of the Breviparopus (?Barremian? epoch, Early Cretaceous Morocco ~ 125 mya)by Nima Sassani

A male and female Braviparopus trek across hot, sunbaked ground in search of water and food. A drought has plagued the area for decades, slowly getting worse each year. The rains themselves sometimes fail to come at all, leaving rivers a muddy trickle, and the land unable to sustain many of these creatures, and most have died since the drought began. These two massive giants are some of the last of their kind, their fat reserves depleted, desperate to survive by eating drying foliage, tree resin, and even the occasional mammal. This is a snapshot from their last few hours on this planet.

Breviparopus was a huge brachiosaur, perhaps even larger than the 100-foot (30m) Sauroposeidon, and is known only from narrow-gauge footprints nearly a meter wide. It may be the same animal as the equally enigmatic giant "Brachiosaurus" nougaredi, which is known from a huge partial sacrum found in Algeria.

For this paleo-environment time capsule, I came up with a number of ideas. This gallery had my mind ticking overtime. I worked for hours on two other pieces, but I'll save them for another time - they'd make a good kids book.

I wanted to try some different things. I created this entire piece digitally, from sketch to completion. I feel I still need practice. This was mainly created in ArtRage 2.5 and a bit in Photoshop Elements 6, using my Intuos 3 tablet.

Inspired a bit by H.P. Lovecraft stories and Frantisek Kupka's The Black Idol, I turned the subject of this gallery on its head. Instead of creating a paleo-environment, I tried to create a make-believe gigantic trilobite fossil that is so huge, it is itself a paleo-environment.

That brings us around the world and back for ART Evolved's next Gallery...

JOIN US in our celebration of all things Therizinosaur for the next two months! If you'd like to partake in an ART Evolved Gallery, send your art along with a small blurb to artevolved@gmail.com. We accept art from anybody and everybody!

So join us for the next Time Capsule March 1st 2010: the bizarre and beautiful Therizinosaurs!

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

It is hard to believe ART Evolved is coming up on the end of its first year in March. In some ways the time has just flown, but yet we've hosted so much productivity it seems like longer at the same time.

Regardless of how this time has passed for you, the fact remains we're coming up on our seventh gallery and so you're probably wanting the topic. Through the results of our most popular poll yet, the clear winner was...

The bizarre plant eating Theropods the Therizinosaurs!

So get those pieces created and submitted by March 1st! Remember to email us your piece to artevolved@gmail.com, and include with it any text captioning you wish to accompany your work, and also your web links for your blog, website, and or other online hub.

Also be sure to stay tuned for discussions on all things Therizinosaurs on ART Evolved. We'll bring you examples of previous Therizinosaur recreations, and tackle some of the more confusing and interesting aspects of restoring these bizarre beasts.